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Esterhazy torte

This post is long overdue, this gorgeous cake was our daring bakers challenge for January (I know!) but hey, better late than never 😛

For the month of January Jelena from A Kingdom for a Cake invited us to start this year with a dreamy celebration cake. She challenged us to make the Esterhazy cake a.k.a the Hungarian dream. What better way to start the year than with a sweet dream?

When the challenge was posted my first thought was: this cake must have been created for royalty because most of these fancy decadent European cakes are. A bit of research proved that I was right! In the 19th century, a confectioner from Budapest baked and named the Esterhazy Torte after the wealthy Prince Paul III Anton Esterhazy de Galantha, a member of the Esterhazy dynasty and diplomat of the Austrian Empire.

The Esterhazy cake is a beautiful melody of flavors: hazelnut sponge cake layers : light, airy and nutty. The hazelnut infused cream is velvety smooth and provides the perfect compliment for the cake layers. A lemony icing which provides an interesting contrast to the rich and nutty hazelnuts, swirled with chocolate, simply because hazelnuts and chocolate are a match made in heaven.Add some toasted hazelnuts for decoration and crunch and you have a truly enchanting cake that is fit for royalty.

The cake is time consuming (though I am sure the previous paragraph convinced you that it is indeed worth every minute). I personally did it over two days: I baked the sponge layers, made the cream, stacked and filled the cake on day 1. Then on day two I added the icing, chocolate swirl and toasted hazelnut decoration.

As you can see from the pictures I totally missed up the spider web chocolate decoration because my icing was a little on the runny side, I would suggest adding the hot water 1 teaspoon at a time, whisk and give the icing a minute or two before you decide to add more water. The cake was still very tasty despite the chocolate miss on top of it lol

Weigh/measure the hazelnuts that you need for the entire recipe (that includes the hazelnut for the cake layers, cream and decoration)The total is 500 grams

Place the hazelnuts on an oven tray in a cold oven, increase the temperature to moderate 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4, and bake until a nice aroma starts to come out of the oven and the nuts have become darker.

Continue until their skins almost turn black or dark brown and the hazelnut ‘meat’ becomes a caramel colour. You will need to watch the oven carefully since the nuts can easily burn.

From time to time, just open the oven and carefully try one to see if the centre is nice and crispy, but be careful not to burn yourself. It should take about 15-25 minutes.

This baking process brings out the nuttiness of the hazelnuts, that is the key flavor in the cake.

Let them cool.

Set aside ¾ cup (3½ oz) (100 gm) toasted nuts and roughly chop them. These will go around the cake at the end.

The rest need to be ground. A grinding machine is best since a food processor might turn the hazelnuts into a creamy mush. If you are using a processor do it in short pulses so they do not have the consistency of peanut butter but of fine powder.

With an electric mixer beat the egg whites while gradually adding the sugar and vanilla sugar for about 5 minutes until stiff peaks form.

Turn the mixer to the lowest speed and add in the hazelnuts mixed with the flour and beat until just combined.

Cut baking paper into five squares large enough to draw a circle of 10 inch (25cm) in diameter on the squares.

Turn the paper over and place one piece onto an up-side down oven tray and delicately spoon inside the circle one-fifth of the beaten egg white mixture.

Place the tray into an preheated moderate 325°F/160°C/gas mark 3 (no fan) oven and bake for 14 minutes. It will look soft but that is how we want them. Your finger should not stick to the layer when you touch it.

Take the layer out together with the paper and place on an even surface

Cool the oven tray and repeat with the next 4 layers. It is important that the up-side down oven tray is cool when you start to bake the layers.

HAZELNUT FILLING

The filling is cooked in a double boiler. If you do not have a double boiler just take two pots so that the smaller one fits perfectly in the larger one and there is no gap between them.

Fill the larger pot with about 1-inch (2 cm) water place on the stove and bring the water to a slow boil, the water should not touch the smaller pot bottom.

Beat the egg yolks and the sugar with an electric mixer in the smaller pot for 30 seconds.

Place the smaller pot into the larger one and cook for 14-15 minutes.

Stir with a wooden spoon always scraping the sides and the bottom.

Cook until you get to a thick cream consistency, the mixture should coat the back of a wooden spoon and the cream should be thick enough to allow you to draw a line across the back of the spoon

Let the filling cool.

Beat the cooked yolks for 30 seconds with an electric mixer.

Beat the room temperature butter for 2 minutes until light and fluffy then beat into the cooked yolks.

Add in the ground hazelnuts and beat again until combined.

Set aside 3/4 of a cup of the filling to cover the torte at the end.

Divide the rest of the filling into 4 parts (about a cup each)

Line your serving dish with some baking paper.

Remove the baking paper from one of the dacquoise and place it onto the tray, spread one quantity of filing evenly over the dacquoise, then place another layer on the top.

Repeat, making sure that the last layer is placed bottom-side-up (do not place filling on this surface) which will make it easier to obtain a smooth looking finish.

Place some baking paper over the torte. Press a bit with your hands to even it out, put another tray over the torte and now place something heavy on the top to allow the torte to level up. A pan half-filled with water will be fine.

Place the whole torte with the pot in the fridge for one hour.

Take the cake out of the fridge and trim the edges if they are not already even

APRICOT JAM GLAZE

Heat the apricot jam and water on the stove.

Remove the top baking paper from the torte and spread the jam on top of it. We want a very thin layer, just barely covering the torte.

Place the torte back in the fridge for 30 minutes for the jam to cool.

When the 30 minutes is up, spread the 2 tablespoons of reserved hazelnut filling around the cake.

(I didn’t have any apricot jam on hand so I simply glazed the whole cake with hazelnut filling)

WHITE ICING

By hand mix the powdered (icing) (confectioners’) sugar, oil, lemon juice while adding teaspoon by teaspoon of hot water until the mixture is creamy, but not runny. Mix vigorously for a couple of minutes. The sugar should be lemony.

With a hot wet large knife quickly spread the icing over the apricot layer.

You will need around 2½ to 3¼ cups of powdered sugar but it is better to have more than less, since when you start spreading you cannot go back. You will have some left over icing. If it is a bit uneven just turn on the hair dryer and heat the icing so it will smooth out a bit.

DECORATION

Before starting with the icing have the chocolate ready since it needs to go onto the soft icing in order to get the web.

Melt the chocolate with a teaspoon of oil, place in a pipping bag, or a plastic bag with a cut in the corner that will act as the tip.

Draw four (4) concentric circles onto the cake, then with a knife (not the sharp side) or a wooden skewer run six (6) lines at 30 degree angle to the cake to get the decoration (see pictures for more details). Each line should be in a different direction. One running away from you and the next one running to you.

Press the remaining crushed hazelnuts around the cake to complete the decoration.

Let rest in the fridge for at least 24 hours before tasting. This cake that gets better as times goes by. We usually enjoy ours for 7 days.

Notes:

The nuts: This recipe traditionally uses toasted hazelnuts. Nowadays, the hazelnuts are often substituted with almonds (in parts of Austria) or walnuts (mainly in Hungary).

Preparation time: This Torte is not to be rushed in preparation and I recommend to make the layers one day and the rest of the cake the following day, or to assemble it but leave the decoration for another day.

22Comments

What an absolutely gorgeous torte and well done on completing the challenge! As Liz once said to me, it was more about completing the challenging whenever one got to it in their own time, connecting with fellow bloggers and continuing in the sense of community!
I hope you feel as proud of yourself as I do seeing your recipe and photography today!

I have no words. I would love to be able to fly to your home and spend an afternoon baking with you, this cake would be my choice, as the praise from your kids says it all….. I promise to be a good student, and do all the dishes! 😉

Oh I wish Sally!
A day baking with you sounds heavenly! and maybe we can sneak in a sourdough loaf? 🙂
You know I think of you every day when I feed my starter..Thank you for being my inspiration.. in so many ways Sally in the kitchen and beyond

You totally nailed this delicacy Sawsan! I’m always impressed with your Hungarian cakes. It looks incredibly delicious and one that I may have to try when my family comes from Budapest in June. I suspect the sliced are thin because it’s so rich. It is indeed very lovely.

Beautiful cake and photos Sawsan!!! I think your kids must be right about the cake and it’s very tempting to try and make it as I’d like to eat it too! 🙂 Also great that it’s in cups and grams! Thank you! 🙂